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7 July 2009

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss", is an American singer-songwriter. He records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock infused with pop hooks, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.
Springsteen's recordings have tended to alternate between commercially accessible rock albums and somber folk-oriented works. Much of his status stems from the concerts and marathon shows in which he and the E Street Band perform intense ballads, rousing anthems, and party rock and roll songs, amongst which he intersperses whimsical or deeply emotional stories.
His most famous albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life in America. He has gradually become identified with liberal politics. He is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11th attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
He has earned numerous awards for his work, including nineteen Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award, and continues to have a strong global fan base. He has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide.
Springsteen’s lyrics often concern men and women struggling to make ends meet. In this sense he was sometimes compared to Woody Guthrie. He has gradually become identified with progressive politics. Springsteen is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
Springsteen’s recordings have tended to alternate between commercially accessible rock albums and somber folk-oriented works. Much of his iconic status stems from the concerts and marathon shows in which he and the E Street Band present intense ballads, rousing anthems, and party rock and roll songs, amongst which Springsteen intersperses long, whimsical or deeply emotional stories.
Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. alone and became one of the best-selling albums of all time with seven singles hitting the top 10, and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen's friends and bandmates. The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by Chrysler Corporation for using the song in a car commercial. (In later years, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only with acoustic guitar to make the song's original meaning more explicitly clear. An acoustic version also appeared on Tracks, a later album.) "Dancing in the Dark" was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen, an appearance which helped kickstart the actress's career. The song Cover Me was written by Springsteen for Donna Summer, but his record company persuaded him to keep it for the new album. A big fan of Summer's work, Springsteen wrote another one for her, "Protection". A number of the videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma or John Sayles.
During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour he met actress Julianne Phillips. They were married in Lake Oswego, Oregon, on May 13, 1985, surrounded by intense media attention. Opposites in background, their marriage was not to be long-lived. Springsteen's 1987 album Tunnel of Love described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship and during the subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour, Springsteen took up with backup singer Patti Scialfa, as reported by many tabloids. Subsequently, Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988.[19] The divorce was finalized in 1989.